Supported? Satisfied? Keeping staff from moving on

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Valerie Neff Newitt

May 2023—When hiring is difficult, how to improve retention becomes what it’s all about.

Linking sign-on bonuses with performance metrics rather than time in the job is one way to try to retain employees in an industry in which demand for staff far outweighs the supply.

Maggie Morrissey, director of recruiting and staffing at Lighthouse Lab Services, Charlotte, NC, is accustomed to filling long-vacant laboratory positions. Her clients generally seek Lighthouse’s help when a position has proved hard to fill. As she and so many others know, it’s better to retain than it is to have to replace. Reducing turnover is what she spoke to CAP TODAY about.

Morrissey

Morrissey and her colleagues at Lighthouse have long advised their clients to offer sign-on bonuses, and they’re typically tied to tenure. An article published in Harvard Business Review on Feb. 8 this year reported on retention bonuses, which companies offer as an incentive to stay on the job through a specified date or until a specified milestone is reached. Though the article says there’s no evidence that retention bonuses increase engagement or long-term loyalty, an end-of-year bonus tied to metrics might prove useful in laboratories, Morrissey says.

“You lay it out nice and clear,” she says: “We’ll give you a sign-on bonus of, say, $2,000. You have an opportunity to earn [another] bonus every year by hitting these metrics.” The laboratory then has to track the metrics, and that’s the difficulty many small businesses run up against, she says.

“However, broadly speaking, nearly every laboratory is holding its team, in some way, shape, or form, to metrics.”

Avoiding a bonus with an end date is the point, she says. An example would be a $10,000 sign-on bonus paid out in thirds over three years. “As soon as they get paid that final check, an employee might feel, okay, I’ve done my part. I’m going to move on to the next employer that will pay a sign-on bonus.” They’re looking for some kind of consistent bonus, she says.

Morrissey recommends that laboratories offer a bonus that is smaller than what is now typically offered—$10,000 to $20,000—and then “publicize their bonus plan,” she says. “People will see their potential earnings on an annual basis versus a one-time bonus.”